SmartenIT ZBWS3 [2014]

@JohnR

I tried this first with your device type instead of the button controller. It showed up in the mobile app as 3 contact sensors in the one device. But after that, nothing. I can’t get any of the physical switch actions to get detected by the hub. The status lights on the device all worked correctly, 5 for join, etc. The device profile in the hub shows information and the bind was accepted. But not the contact sensors themselves. Any thoughts?

Had a friend come by who is a network engineer and take the device for testing. He has two zigbee installs at his house, one for home automation and one for some work stuff. He had no problem joining the switch to either network and all three toggles were recognized and usable on both networks. So it’s not the physical device.

He’s bringing it back over now in case anyone has any ideas, but it’s definitely something specific to either ST or the install process I tried.

He likes the form factor on the device (so do I), so if I can’t make it work he’s going to buy it from me and at least I won’t have to hassle with a return.

He agrees with me that it looks like:

  1. ST and the device do detect each other during the Join process. The device blinks 5 times like it’s supposed to, and ST adds it as a “Thing” of unknown type.

  2. If I then manually edit the device type to be @JohnR 's 3 contact sensors, the device shows up as a Thing tile and the hub will try to send commands to it. But does not seem to ever receive data back. I tried doing the Configure suggested upstream but it didn’t help.

  3. If I manually edit the device type to @thegibertchan 's , same issues. The device type is recognized, I can install the button controller smartapp and it lists this device as an option, but it never registers the toggle.

  4. and, as mentioned, the physical device works fine with a different zigbee coordinator.

I have no evidence for this, but it feels like the device types are installing to virtual devices, not this specific physical device, but I don’t know how to look for that.

Try installing the driver from the “My Device Types” section of the IDE. Open up the driver in the IDE for edit then on the right side of the screen pick your location and then from the drop down. Click on device and under physical devices scroll down to the “thing” that is your 3 button device. Then scroll to the bottom and hit the install button. Now you can observe the traffic that is going back and forth to your device. If that doesn’t help uncover something let me know. When I get freed up I will dig out my switch and set it up and work through it with you.

Did just that the first time around. See the Configure cmd going to the device, nothing ever comes back.

It’s nice to teach a tiger (@jdroberts) how to hunt at times! :slight_smile:

Hey when it comes to SmartThings I’m just a goat tied to a tree with a length of Cat5. :goat: :paw_prints:

Aren’t we all? :wink: 20 chars.

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The three button switch is a ZigBee end device so it has to have a router or coordinator as a parent and you can not communicate with it directly. The parent holds a packet for the device until it checks in with it to see if there is any cached data. Usually the parent will hold only one or two packets for it and will delete the oldest packets.

When the switch is awake (just checked with its parent for data) you can send it multiple packets and that is what my device driver does. It is a timing thing so what I have done is to wake-up the switch by either pushing one of the toggle buttons or the program button and then click my mouse on the install button in the IDE at the same time. It is very much a hit and miss type thing. Sometimes the switch goes back to sleep before the SmartThings cloud can process my click. It can get frustrating! But you shouldn’t have to do this anyway. I also understand that would be difficult for you to do. So lets focus on the join process and getting that to work correctly.

SmartThings has a fingerprinting process they use to match up a new device with its published driver. This fingerprinting is based on a couple of discovery commands the hub sends the device when it joins the network. I don’t think your device is getting discovered and matched to my driver since it is showing up as an unknown device. There are several things that can cause the fingerprinting process to not fire correctly. The first thing to check is to make sure my device driver is published to your local account you can do that from the IDE. If you did that then lets reset the device back to factory and try again. I think you pull the battery out hold down the program button and put it back in and then take it back out. Also delete the “unknown device” that represents this switch from your “My Devices” section in the IDE. Now from the IDE take a look at your hub’s traffic under “My Hubs” tab, then click on List Events. Here you should see a log of traffic in and out of your hub (If SmartThings servers are keeping up with traffic). I would like you to keep an eye on that traffic as we join the device to the network.

To join your switch after you have done the above with the battery still out of the switch, please follow these steps:

  1. From your phone click on the plus to add a new device. Observe the green light on your SmartThings hub it will start to flash. If it doesn’t flash then something went wrong try again.
  2. Put the battery in the switch and keep an eye on the switche’s LED there is a flash sequence that will let you know it has joined a ZigBee HA network. Also keep an eye on the Hub’s log file I would like to have a copy of that traffic if the device shows up as an unknown device again.
  3. If everything worked after a few minutes to 15 minutes the switch will show up with a switch icon and allow you to rename it and change the icon.

The log file will show the attempted fingerprinting process and that is what I need to see if it doesn’t work.

Make sure your switch is close to your hub when you do this! In theory you should be able to join a device from any router in the ZigBee network but I have seen SmartThings have problems with this in the past so I always try to have my device close to the hub.

Good luck!

Will do shortly.

I understand the sleepy device issue and message queue, I’d expect that with a battery powered switch.

For right now let’s see if we can get the join. My friend’s going to stop by in about half an hour and we’ll reset and try it then.

Thanks again!

Done. Device flashed five times, ST green light flashing.

ST changed to solid green.
Meanwhile, hub Events log lists 4 zwave search events: include search, starting up, ready, include search.
Mobile app is still searching.
My Devices has added a Thing with Type Unknown with fingerprint 00137A000001386D and a new device address.

Events log lists a repeat of the 4 search events; search, starting up, ready, include search. This full cycle has now repeated 4 times.

It has been 20 minutes, so I exited the mobile app search.

[quote]

  1. If everything worked after a few minutes to 15 minutes the switch will show up with a switch icon and allow you to rename it and change the icon. [/quote]

Nope. I have one “not Yet configured” Thing of Device Type Unknown.

[quote]
The log file will show the attempted fingerprinting process and that is what I need to see if it doesn’t work. [/quote]

fingerprint 00137A000001386D

I stopped here. On the previous attempts I went ahead and manually edited the Device Type to yours, but for this step there is just the zigbee Thing of Unknown Type.

The Device log shows the entry was created early in the process, probably when the device lights flashed in their join sequence. The zwave search continued to run in the cycles described above until I exited manually.

Also, to make sure we’ve covered everything:

to pick up your device type, all I did was

  1. copy the code from the forum
  2. go to the IDE and add a new device type…
    3)…from Code
  3. Paste in what I had copied
  4. Create
  5. Publish…to Me

I didn’t change anything inside the code I copied, so for example it still has your namespace. And I didn’t enter any fields at all on the Form page.

You have done everything the way is should be done!

The log entries are not what I expected to see. I need to set it up here and give it a try to see what I get in my log. I suspect something has changed with the hub since I wrote the custom device type last year. I have a fairly busy two days coming up at work, it may be the weekend before I get to it. We will get it working even if I have to rewrite the driver.

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This was also a problem with the minimotes caused by a cloud change, should have fixed itself a few days later.

Do you or @sjansen have the SmartenIt 3 toggle switch currently working with SmartThings, and if so, what smart device type are you using?

As mentioned upstream, I finally received mine and joined it, but the none of the buttons work. :pensive:

@JDRoberts, mine is currently working and I didn’t notice the difficulties a couple of weeks ago that were mentioned above. I use it daily to control a number of lights in my living room.

I’m using the original device type from @JohnR. I wish I could offer some support with your difficulties but my only advice is the configure/binding commands that I previously posted and I understand you’ve already tried that…

That’s very helpful, thanks!

It may be a sleeping device issue, that the switch was asleep when the configure came by. I will have my friend try the configure again while tapping the switch and see if we can catch it that way.

Thanks again. :blush:

It works! It took three days and two network engineers, but it totally works! A zigbee 3 button controller (using Gibert Chan’s custom device type). Change mode, initiate a Hello Home Action, toggle a light switch. Should have excellent xAF. Good for wall switch or tabletop. And my service dog can at least hit one toggle, we’ll have to see if he can distinguish the left and right (I don’t expect him to get the middle.)

Thanks to everyone, but especially @JohnR @sjansen and @thegibertchan

I’ve written the whole install procedure up as a FAQ, but meanwhile, yes, Virginia, there is a tabletop or wall mount battery operated 3 button toggle controller with a very light-switch like look and feel.

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Awesome!! I just dug mine out and was getting ready to help troubleshoot. Glad you guys got it working!! I think the SmartThings team would love to see it in action when you get your dog comfortable with it.

Well, I sure am glad I came across this thread. My wife is so stubborn when it comes to my Home Auto obsession. She wants physical buttons to push, so I have two secondary remotes connected. However, the Cree/GE bulbs of course are Zigbee. I just ordered the three button switch straight from the Smartenit website. Was surprised it was only $49. I can’t believe I am now using “only” when it comes to a light switch, but I have really gotten into this HA thing. I was a little disapointed in the shipping cost. I look forward to seeing more of their products on Amazon Prime :slight_smile: Thank you all for this thread. You may have saved my marriage! haha

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Please make sure you follow all the steps in the original post. Especially steps 14 through 16c. Otherwise it may not work.

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I purchased a Lutron Connected Bulb wireless switch last night. Not for a lack of trying, but I could not get my STH to connect to it. I tried over and over, but finnaly broke out my old Wink Hub and it connected in a snap. How can a exceptional device like the STH v2 have such problems with Zigbee controllers, while a lesser option like the Wink have no problem? Very frustrating that I now have one bulb on my Wink hub just so I can use the switch. I sure hope the Smartenit switch brings me better luck!

Completely different issue. It’s based on existing business arrangements. WINK made the decision early on that they would have an official integration with Lutron. That’s why they work with the pico remotes as well. SmartThings chose not to pursue that relationship, probably in part to control the price point of the device.

Zigbee does not have the concept of secondary controllers in the same way that zwave does. So it’s not a standard integration. It’s something that wink and Lutron agreed to work out for themselves.

On the other hand, Smartthings has an official integration with harmony, which wink does not. Again, it’s not that wink is technologically inferior, but rather that two companies agreed between themselves to work out a direct integration.

It’s all part of brand differentiation. Each company decides where it wants to invest and what price point it wants to ultimately hit, and which features it thinks customers will want first. As customers we vote with our dollars as to whether they guessed right about the features that were important to us. And of course we can send them direct feedback through the forum topics like “suggest a device” to help encourage them to make future integration decisions in the directions that we would like to see.